Ted Koppel announced he’ll be leaving ABC in December. How do you feel about this? Check out TV Yahoo’s people poll choices, and take our own poll below:
Yahoo’s choices are:
- No! Koppel’s the man! He can’t leave!
- I look forward to seeing what he’ll do next.
- It’s probably for the best.
- It’s a death knell for network news.
Without peeking (the answer is in the comments section below), guess how Yahoo TV visitors are voting. (And, vote at Yahoo yourself.)
Below, let’s discuss the current polling results. And let’s talk about how YOU feel about Koppel’s departure from Nightline.
Yahoo’s poll choices are always quite airy. This one amounts “I like Pie.”
You’re so right. In fact, 90% of the time I don’t know which TV star or show they’re polling about since I have probably rather atypical viewing habits. But, I think this poll is rather serious, and the results to date are rather telling. Sigh.
I typed “rather” three times in that post. What’s up with that???
It was a very equivocal poll. Rather “rather” wasn’t it? Or as we say downhome, “huh?”
First, my personal feelings about Nightline: I can’t tell you how many times Nightline has infuriated me. Their recent show about the Ohio vote controversy was demeaning to a lot of very bright people who feel something (a lot of things) went very wrong in Ohio.
I can think of many other times I threw my slipper at Ted Koppel’s head. But, I can also think of many evenings when I was enraptured by the show, or devastated by what he showed that I doubt we’d see anywhere else on network television. The two-part series on the plight of North Korea’s children was so devastatingly powerful, I’ll never forget it. The shows about the life and death of a prominent architect — god, I forget his name — who taught architecture students how to build low-cost housing for the indigent out of the most amazing “junk” — used tires, and so on.
Every time someone like this passes away from my TV screen, I look for — but rarely find — a replacement. There was Tom Snyder, whose two shows I devotedly followed — like a lot of other insomniacs. Tom interviewed some of the most fascinating people of our time, and his interviews aren’t ever shown, even when his subjects are hot topics in the news. One minor example: Tom used to have Robert Blake on, and he’d let Blake go on in that fantastical, bewildering mind of his. Footage of Tom’s interviews with Blake, during his recent trial for murder, would have afforded a unique insight into Blake. By the way, Tom still speaks — on his Web site, Colortini. I haven’t checked lately to see what Tom has written about the outcome of Blake’s trial. I must do that.
Then, of course, there was the departure of Phil Donahue from MSNBC, for whom there’s been no replacement. … And on and on…
Question: Ted Koppel announced he’ll be leaving ABC in December. How do you feel about this?
2821 votes since Apr 1 2005
No! Koppel’s the man! He can’t leave!
14%
398 votes
I look forward to seeing what he’ll do next.
24%
687 votes
It’s probably for the best.
44%
1240 votes
It’s a death knell for network news.
18%
496 votes
My daughter told me last night that she’s read that ABC is trying to get Ellen Degeners to take the Nightline slot.
From what I can see, Ellen would be a great choice to replace Ted. Thoughtful, not full of herself, an ability to make a wide variety of people comfortable during an inteview… my only concern is that she be able to turn off her siliness. I think she can, I’d love to see her try.
A post I saw some time ago on Kos about Nightline has been stuck on my craw. How much blame does NL have to shoulder for giving us Ronald Reagan? Just imagine what would have happened if there had been a nationwide RWCM attack on GWB night after night after night after night…
Interesting. I’ll, however, miss some of their stories which I doubt will be produced anywhere else on television.
Are you going to be around tomorrow night for the Deadwood thread?!
Being that the last time I purposely sat down to watch a network news show (outside of The News Hour–and not even that, very often) was in the 1980s (about the time I discovered the BBC on short wave), I clearly could care less about Koppel’s departure.
Too bad the poll has no place for an opinion like mine.
I’ve mostly divorced myself from MSM TV but I retain visitation rights with its increasingly marginalized valuable programming … and I think it’s important to check in, for a lot of reasons. Further, in MSM’s defense, there’s some incredibly good and powerful reporting once in a while.
To wit: NIGHTLINE: HIDDEN LIVES CHILDREN ESCAPING: 1/14/03
ABC Video
A snippet from the description of the second Nightline broadcast:
Aaron, it’s safe to say you’re not like most of the American public in your views or media preferences. Ditto for most of us here. But, for most Americans, Nightline was a small pathway into some form of exposure to issues that David Letterman and Jay Leno (the other two network choices at that hour) will never get into, beyond biting comedic references. And now even that small pathway will be shut off come December. Most Americans haven’t got a clue about BBC on short wave, and it is they we must hope to reach to change anything.
It’s not much of a lifeline, though, when there’s an anchor attached to the other end.
<ouch!> Sorry! <ouch!> Stop that! <ouch!>
What he said, with the caveat that I gave my tv away 10 yrs ago and couldn’t be happier…
err…what Barlow said